


Shelter from the Storm

by pristineungift



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dark, Drama, F/M, Family Drama, Gen, Half-Sibling Incest, Psychological Trauma, Sexual Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-15
Updated: 2012-03-15
Packaged: 2017-11-02 00:17:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pristineungift/pseuds/pristineungift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After losing her memory in the beginning of “Fever,” Jennsen lives with her brother, Darken Rahl, who takes advantage of her memory lapse. Darken/Jennsen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelter from the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> In the wake of my dark_fest entries, I was challenged to go darker. So, here we are. This is an alternate look at what could have happened in Chapter 35 “Complicated” of my fic Castle in the Air. However, it can stand on its own and I've been careful to exclude major spoilers for the story. Special thanks to brontefanatic for letting me babble at her and making me feel less creepy, and to evilgmbethy for betaing.

“Darken,” Jennsen said quietly, the first time she had called her eldest brother by his given name.

Sitting at the window, he turned his gaze on her, startled to be addressed that way.  No one called him by his given name alone. Only his mother had ever done so consistently.  He was surprised at how intimate it sounded coming from Jennsen’s lips.

How it raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

“Come here, Jennsen,” he answered, raising an arm to beckon her.  Her name was as rich and sweet on his tongue as hearing her say his had been on his ears.

Jennsen crowded him, a hand on his chest, stroking his skin, seeking comfort. “I dreamt of Richard finding me,” she whispered.

His muscles twitched, something wickedly painful lancing his heart.

Jennsen noticed his imperceptible wince. “I’m sorry,” she said, and didn’t know why.

“No,” he returned, sliding an arm around her waist, stroking a hand down her hair. “Nightmares are something I’m accustomed to dealing with.”

Darken closed his eyes, resting his cheek against blood red hair. It was soft.  She turned her face up to his, her eyes so blue, the square white neckline of her nightgown a sharp contrast to her slightly pink skin.  How she reminded him of his mother. That same delicate look, those same soft smiles.

The love in her eyes.

He snorted lightly at his own thoughts and Jennsen parted her lips in question.

Darken stared down at her, and Jennsen’s mouth went dry. Hesitantly, shy, she cupped his cheek in one small white hand, running the edge of her thumb over the scratchy hairs of his mustache.

“Darken,” she said again, after moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue, “do you have bad dreams about him too? About Richard?”

He could feel her shiver.

“Yes,” he said, a swift hiss of air that escaped his lips before he could think.

A sudden flash of lightning outside the window made Jennsen jump, the loud peal of thunder that followed echoing throughout the room. Darken saw the Sword of Truth coming for him in the brilliant flash of light.

Just as he saw it every night, in his dreams.

He heard his last heartbeat in the thunder.

He held Jennsen closer, cradling her against his chest. He could see her pulse thumping in her throat, quick with her fright.

A rabbit.

His dear little bird.

Aching at the haunted look in her brother’s eyes, Jennsen stood on tip toe to kiss his cheek, the odd apprehension, the tense shyness she experienced in his presence clutching at her less and less the more time she spent with him.

At the last moment, Darken turned his head and their lips met.

Jennsen gasped in surprise, eyes opened wide before sliding shut. A liquid heat that disgusted and thrilled her at once shot down her spine, her stomach dropping to her feet. His lips were much softer than she had ever thought possible.   Darken tightened his arms around her, and she clung back, fingers digging into the fabric of his robes.

He was comfort. He was strength. He was safety. He was shelter from the storm.

He was her brother.

Darken opened his mouth against hers, tongue hot and demanding, plunging the moment firmly over the edge of what was supposed to occur between siblings and Jennsen squeaked. She could feel the peaks of her breasts harden, scratching against the fabric of her nightgown. In the same moment, bile rose in her throat.

Darken moaned, threading his fingers into her hair, shifting to face her completely, his hips flush with hers.

Tears gathered in her eyes, spilling over to stream unchecked down her cheeks. She leaned back and he pulled her closer. Her breath grew short, and his did as well, something hard digging into the soft heat between her thighs.

Her hips jerked against his, a motion she could not stop herself from making, and horror found its way to her heart. She gasped into his mouth and he swallowed the sound, pulling her closer still, his nails in her back.  For a few blissful seconds they clung to each other, a desperate desire, an unholy passion unrestrained.

And then the wrongness of what they were doing brought them plummeting to earth.

Jennsen jerked away, hands pushing against Darken’s chest, breast heaving and eyes wild, her face flushing purple with a maelstrom of emotion.

But Darken would not let her go.

He watched her weep and kissed her tears, the salt sharp and vibrant on his tongue. She stood stiffly, her breath short and shrill, high frightened pants that pricked at his senses.

He leaned in to enfold her lips in his again, and she pushed him away once more, overwrought.

“Jennsen,” he said lowly, warning in his tone. She struggled and he put more strength in his grip.

“You’re hurting me,” she choked, lips trembling, face crumpling as she began to sob.

The words hung in the air, set against a backdrop of rain and sorrow.

_You’re hurting me._

Darken stood frozen, his arms locked around his sister.

Jennsen’s rejection sucked at his soul like an oversized anchor dragging a ship into the murky depths of the sea.  Something cracked inside him, rage roiling in his gut rising to the surface. He would not let her leave him, would not let _her_ abandon him again.

He grasped Jennsen's neck with one strong, hard hand, fingers splayed against her skin. Once more he bent to take a kiss, lips harsh and unforgiving.

Violent.

She struggled against him and he squeezed her throat, a dark pleasure stirring at the sound of her choked sobs.

He worked his way down her jaw, her neck, to her shoulder, leaving a trail of kisses accompanied by the sting of teeth until he reached the fabric of her nightgown.

“Please don’t,” she beseeched him, voice barely audible, her face an ugly purple mess of tears, a mask of pain. “Please,” she gasped again and again until the word lost meaning, any sick pleasure she had been feeling consumed by the horror of it all.

The violence.

It was all happening so fast, one moment to the next. She couldn’t focus, couldn’t think, only weep and plead, though she no longer knew what she was pleading for, an all too familiar terror freezing her heart in her chest.

Darken ripped the sleeve of her nightgown, exposing her bare shoulder, and then his mouth was there, his lips warm and moist and Jennsen began to shake.

“Stop weeping,” he commanded, offended at her distress.

Rain pounded against the windowpane, thunder sounding in the distance.

Jennsen shook her head, rocking against him.

And still she wept.

It set Darken’s teeth on edge.

_She_ had always wept. She wept and she wept because she was weak. She couldn’t protect him from his father.

She was not strong. Not like Jennsen’s mother.

Richard’s mother.

Darken knew when he heard the weeping that it would not be long before he was called.

“ _Stop weeping_ ,” he snarled, a panic he despised rising in his chest.

His interest in sex, in proving his love to Jennsen waned with the anxiety gripping him, and that served to make him angrier still.

“Stop weeping,” and this time it was a broken plea, a boy’s voice going unheard in the dark. Jennsen cried harder, and Darken raised the hand that held Jennsen’s hips in place to join the one at her throat, cradling her face in a fraught embrace that left white marks on her skin.

“Shhhh,” he said, and didn’t know if he was shushing her or himself. Still she would not stop her sobs, struggling against him anew.

He subdued her, wrapping his arms about her shoulders, one curling up around her head, pressing her face into his neck. He murmured shushing, soothing sounds, even as his heart hammered.

She would not stop weeping, and his mind would not stop screaming, and it would not stop raining, every noise too loud. She would not stop fighting, and his heart would not stop breaking, dread would not stop flooding his soul.

A thing possessed, a wailing specter, her hand shot out, nails tearing flesh from his cheek, and he wrenched back with all his strength, no longer able to stand the weeping, his arm around her throat.

There was a wet pop, and sudden stillness, a rattle of air.

Darken breathed a sigh, panting through his nose, grateful that she had at last conceded to him. No more weeping, ebbing terror, a moment to let the silence ring throughout the room, leeching poison from his veins.

Blessed silence.

Just the sound of rain.

He took a breath, letting it out slowly, pressing a shaky kiss to Jennsen’s hair, her weight dragging at his arms.

“Jennsen?” he queried, hating the unplanned vulnerability in his voice.

Slowly, feeling as if he was made of glass, he let her go.

And watched her slump to the floor, her body hitting the carpet with a muted thump.

She looked like she was sleeping, if you ignored her blotchy face. The torn sleeve of her dress, the bite mark he had left on her neck.

The odd angle of her head.

The way her tongue hung slightly over her gaping lips.

Desecrated.

She looked so like Mother.

He did not know how long he sat there, in the window seat, her cooling body in his arms. He did not know how long he had held his mother years ago, when he found her already cold.

He couldn’t remember when it had started raining.

He cradled Jennsen against his chest, her dead blue lips over his heart.

_Why couldn’t you just love me?_ he asked her silently, though his eyes were locked on his rain distorted reflection in the window.

He looked so like Father.

With a sudden rage that did not feel real, Darken stood, lifting Jennsen’s corpse, her head hanging grotesquely to one side.

A shriek of enraged pain came up from his toes, and yet sounded far away. Reason divorced from action, Darken hurled her body with all his might, shattering his reflection in the window.

And shattering Jennsen’s bones on the rocks below.

 


End file.
